Love The Sinner - Posted: 17 Feb 2015 09:02 PM PST
The Gospel, I think, is intended to open hearts. It teaches us to open our hearts. Yet so many of the faithful, inside and outside of our church, have very closed minds.
It feels strange to me to see some use the Gospel to narrow their views and close their minds, and also it seems, their hearts.
The reason I find closed minds and closed hearts as so detrimental to relationships of every kind is because it prevents people from being accepted as they are instead of how they "should" be.
Acceptance is the first step to understanding and ultimately loving our neighbors and even our enemies.
We cannot love who we cannot accept. We can't love only the love able aspects of others, we must love them completely.
Many people will say they can love the sinner but hate the sin. But this is often used as an excuse to judge while "loving" the sinner. Which is why this cliche often goes wrong and is just another damaging method to judge a sinner.
It is impossible, I feel, to stand in judgment of someone yet "love" them at the same time. I think you can do one or the other but not both.
That and according to the scriptures we are all sinners. We still owe it to the God we worship to love all His children. Every last one, regardless of them simply sinning differently than we do.For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God. Romans 3:23
If we are to judge every sin, if we are to judge every sinner we will never mete out justice because judgment is Christs' alone. Our job is to love one another as Christ loves each of us.
What makes this easier for me is sending how much God loves everyone I know, every single person I meet. Seeing others as Christ does, with understanding, with compassion and with love.
Gandhi once said if you can't see God in the next person you meet you can forget about finding Him anywhere else.
We can't move on from hurt and pain until we accept our situation as it is rather than as it should be. Acceptance allows us to move forward with our lives.
Acceptance is also the means by which we begin to love others as Christ loved us.
The scriptures tell us to judge not and we will not be judged but if we do judge others we will be judged by that same standard by God. The scriptures teach that if we want mercy, we must be merciful. If we want forgiveness we must be forgiving.
But since we are all sinners, to hate every sin would be exhausting. And hate is too great a burden to bear because it wears us down, it burns us from the inside out. It overwhelms us and causes us to do and say hateful things.Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that. Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that.
You can murder a hater, you can murder a killer but you can't murder hate or murder.
Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend. With hate you will never win over anyone but with love there is a chance albeit a small chance.
Sometimes it is better to lose in love than to win with hate.
